Male dog lifts his leg to poop

Question
I have an 8 month old min poodle/shitzu mix and he has started to lift his leg to poop! He tries to poop on trees, sign posts, rocks, anything they would normally pee on. The problem is that gravity naturally makes the poop hit his other leg and I have mess to clean up every time he poops! Is this normal? I've never heard of a dog doing that and is there anything that I can do to prevent it?
Thanks!!!

Answer
Hello Mindy,
I have not only heard of dogs doing this, I had a male that would do it.  It is typically a male dominate thing because they are trying to get their Poo scent up as high as they can.  Its a status thing, the males will try to make themselves look as big as they can to another dog.  Dogs scent glands are on either side of their rectum.  When they pee or poo, the pressure causes those glands to express onto their "deposits".  When other dogs check out the recent "deposits" they can get information about the other dog.  Your dog is just trying to make himself look bigger to other dogs passing by.  

As far as getting him to stop, if he is on a leash, you can try to give him a leash correction that will make him loose his balance and land on all fours.  Try to time the leash correction with him starting to poo, so that he can't stop and lift his leg again.  You may or may not be able to stop this.  
If he isn't neutered you may think about getting him fixed because this will stop the hormones that make him more dominate.  

I hope this helps you some.  If you have other questions, please feel free to ask.

Thanks for using AllExperts.com,
Kim